First Take: Isn’t It Romantic- it isn’t.

SYNOPSIS: A young woman disenchanted with love mysteriously finds herself trapped inside a romantic comedy.

This plot feels vaguely familiar, like another film tried to do this exact narrative a little under a year ago. Seriously. But unlike the hell of last year’s I Feel Pretty, this film does have some good moments… but not many of them, which explains why Netflix picked it up.

It’s directed by Todd Strauss-Schulson, who takes the conventions of the romcom genre and attempts to subvert them in the name of 12a certificate humour- sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and working to a script from Erin Cardillo, Dana Fox and Katie Silberman, there isn’t enough humour to pad it out to a 90 minute runtime without it feeling cliched, and tired, especially when the majority of the jokes come with the censoring of swear words. It’s shot decently by Simon Duggan, and John Debney’s score just about does the job.

Performance wise, Rebel Wilson is a pretty likeable lead in this one, but after seeing her play the same character in almost every film she’s done since Pitch Perfect, it’s hard not to argue that she is starting to be typecast- working with her is Liam Hemsworth, Adam Devine and Priyanka Chopra, who form a decent cast in terms of starpower, but once all of their work and that script is combined, the film falls short of all of the hype the trailers had created, and obviously with it’s release straight on to streaming services, that just about says it all.

THE VERDICT

Isn’t It Romantic is an alright film for what it’s trying to do- satirise the idea of the romantic comedy. But with that 12 certificate here in the UK, there is a lot of potential that can’t be built upon due to those BBFC regulations.

RATING: 3/5